The American Spectator

home
ADVERTISEMENT
Print Email
Text Size

At Large

Children As Bombs

Anti-individualism taught to an extreme.

(Page 2 of 2)

What the aforementioned young people could use is some major deprogramming. For starters, the suicide-promoting poetry in their curriculum could be replaced with some Ayn Rand, the perfect antidote for self-immolation.

In For the New Intellectual, Rand warns against "death-worshipping mystics" who control and humiliate through the use of guilt and fear, preaching that a man's pursuit of happiness here on earth is evidence of depravity and selfishness, that his independent mind is a source of arrogance, his body a source of evil, that his liberty, self-esteem and individuality are desecrations of the commandments for obedience, humility, suffering, renunciation and self-sacrifice.

"There is no way to make a human being accept the role of a sacrificial animal," writes Rand, "except by destroying his self-esteem."

Page:   12

topics:
Education, Islam, Books, Military, Israel

About the Author

Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise and an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (1) | Leave a comment

Leave a Comment

N.B. We encourage readers to share and discuss their thoughtful and relevant comments about this Spectator article. Comments are routinely monitored and will be deleted if profane, bigoted, or grossly impolite. Please be respectful. (And don't feed the trolls!) Thank you.

Related Articles

More Articles by Ralph R. Reiland

More Articles From At Large

http://spectator.org/archives/2006/09/19/children-as-bombs
ADVERTISEMENT

Clip of the Day

Most Popular Articles

Who Castrated Ann Coulter?

David Catron | 2.6.12

Bigoted Barack, Red in Tooth and Clause

George Neumayr | 2.10.12

Unsafe at Any Smoke

Eric Peters | 2.10.12

Access This

Ross Kaminsky | 2.10.12

The Delousing of a Movement

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. | 2.9.12

The Show Me State's No Show Primary

Andrew B. Wilson | 2.10.12

Justice Ginsburg Should Resign

William Tucker | 2.8.12

No Double Play

Peter Hannaford | 2.10.12

ADVERTISEMENT